The invention relates to a method for making available current traffic information about a traffic situation on a route and/or about the state of the route.
In order to determine route information, at least one motor vehicle which is located on the route is used. A method of this type is known, for example, from DE 10 2010 022 707 A1.
According to the method known from this document, image data of a multiplicity of locations is recorded by a multiplicity of image-recording devices which are each arranged in a vehicle. In addition, the respective location and the time of the recording are registered. The image data is analyzed, and details of a specific category, for example petrol prices of a gas station which can be recognized in the image data are extracted from the image data. This extracted information is transmitted to a central database where it is made available for outputting to other vehicles.
DE 10 2011 106 295 A1 discloses that information data originating from motor vehicles and describing a traffic state is transmitted to a central service provider. The latter can be used to change and to add to the information data in order to calculate traffic information therefrom for a traffic information system.
The information which comes together in a central data server must generally be compiled to a large degree in order to acquire traffic information which is informative for the many drivers who receive this traffic information. However, this causes details which can be useful for individual drivers in certain situations to be lost. It is therefore helpful for a driver to experience in the short term what is happening further ahead, for example in a traffic jam, or what road conditions are currently present in the secondary roads of a specific destination owing to the current weather situation.
In conjunction with the transmission of files between two personal computers via the Internet it is known to transmit such data via what is referred to as a peer-to-peer network. A peer-to-peer network permits a computer to make a search request relating to a specific name of a file in the peer-to-peer network. The computer then learns via the peer-to-peer network on which other computer of the peer-to-peer network a file with such a file name is stored. For this purpose, the network address of the computer with the file is transmitted to the searching computer. The searching computer can then transmit an interrogation relating to the transmission of the file to the network address and therefore obtain the file from the other computer.